Ghosts of the Past
by Walker of Thin Ice
Summary: "Why?" Spike asks himself, "am I still alive when I should have been dead so long ago..." Set after Episode 26. Please read and review
1. Vicious?

Vicious was dead, and so was I. I was just meant to be dead amongst the living. Life sucks, and today was no different. With no bounties on the horizon, I had decided to visit a local joint, seeing if I could kill some time.  
  
As I left, I noticed something. Something you wouldn't notice if you had something on your mind.  
  
Fortunately, I didn't. Someone had just gone around the corner in front of me, hoping I wouldn't notice.  
  
I pulled out my gun and prepared for a fight. My back up against the wall, I slinked over to the corner, jumped out, pointed my gun and quickly scanned the confined alley for an enemy.  
  
Nothing.until a flash of some metal reflecting light caught my eye. Someone dressed in black quickly approaching, and I didn't want to know what would happen if they got close enough.  
  
I shot. In what seemed like a cowardice move, the figure threw his coat before him hoping vainly to stop the bullet. Strangely though, the long, black coat stayed in the air. Under it, something long and thin was holding it up.  
  
That something had also stopped my bullet in its tracks. The coat slowly slid off, revealing a long katana. The figure's face had a familiar sneer on it, and I was sure of who was about to kill me.  
  
I shot again. He rushed me, the bullet narrowly missing his shoulder. With the flat of his sword the gun was knocked out of my hand.  
  
He stabbed at my stomach, and I twisted to the side, getting into a position that let me connect a solid punch with his face.  
  
Rolling with the punch he shifted into a flawless back flip, landing on one hand then pushing off again. His feat landed on the wall of the alley, and he pushed of it sending him flying towards me for the kill.  
  
I, meanwhile, had caught a sight of my gun. I ran toward it, sliding feet first next to its location where I picked it up, and shot from the ground.  
  
I landed a shot on his chest, altering his decent toward me, and causing him to crash into the wall adjacent the one he pushed off. I heard the cracking of bone as he impacted and watched him slide him off the wall into a clump of the street. As I got up, and assumed he was lifeless, until I noticed just how tightly he was gripping his sword. 


	2. The end and the begining

Yes, yes I don't own Cowboy Bebop, though it would be very awesome if I did.  
  
He lunged straight at me, plunging his sword into my neck. I should have been dead, but that has been true many times before. I, ignoring the extreme abnormality of the situation, looked into his face, trying to figure out who was at the moment "killing" me.  
  
The face I stared at was not the man I knew as Vicious, but at the same time it was. "Who are you," I asked. He replied simply, "a ghost from the past." He suddenly vanished from existence, the sword in my throat no longer there. I walked on, not thinking of anything else to do about the situation.  
  
As I turned the corner, I saw a flash of yellow. This familiar yellow that had haunted me forever and now it was traveling farther away from me.  
  
I gave chase.  
  
The face of the woman I was chasing turned toward me and I recognized its owner.to some extent. It was Julia, but not Julia. I couldn't understand what was happening, so I kept running.  
  
She darted into an alleyway and as I turned around it she was already up the fire escape. I followed her threw a window and out the door of an apartment. As I turned I lost my footing and slid into a wall, leaving my sprawled across the floor.  
  
I quickly got up, and though I had lost sight of her, she had run down a hallway with only one door.  
  
It was marked: "ROOF"  
  
As I ascended the stairs, I though about what I was doing. These people were dead. Why was I chasing my hallucinations through the city? "Because your dead," said a voice from behind me. "Grin," I said, " so you can read minds now?" "No, you're just thinking too loud. And to answer your question, you're dead as well. The real question is what are you doing with the living?"  
  
I left him standing there. He melted into the shadows as I ran up the rest of the way up the stairs. I saw Julia waiting for me at the end of the building. "Why are you still here?" she asked. "What?" I stuttered. "You should have woken up from this dream a long time ago." she evaporated into the air with a sound like the whipping of the wind.  
  
I walked over the edge. Why am I still in this dream? My life flashed before my eyes as I plummeted down to the earth, leaving me with the comforting knowledge that I was already dead.  
  
See you space cowboy. 


End file.
